
/K'^^ 



685 
<54 
OPV 1 



THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE OF KAN'SAS. 



SPEECH 

/ OF 

PRESTON KING, OF NEW YORK, 

In the Senate of the United States, March 16th, 1858, 



ON THE 

FRAUDS, USURPATION, AND PURPOSE, IN WHICH THE SLAVE CONSTITUTION OP 
THE LECOMPTON CONVENTION HAD ITS ORIGIN. 



,'y 



Mr. KING. Mr. President, before the Rev- 
olution, charters were granted to the colonies 
by the Crown. Since then, up to this time, 
the people of the vStates of the Union have 
made their Constitutions for themselves. Now, 
for the first time since the Continental Con- 
gress declared the colonies free and independ- 
ent States, the question is raised of the right 
of the people to adopt or reject the Constitution 
which is to create them a State qualified to 
come into the Union, one of the equal States 
of our Confederacy. 

Kansas, brought to the door of the Senate 
for the purpose of having the Lecompton con- 
stitution imposed upon her people by the au- 
thority of an act of Congress, presents that 
question to us. 

Benjamin Franklin, contemplating his coun- 
try when her independence had been acknowl- 
edged and the Republic was established, is 
said to have expressed the wish that he might 
be permitted to look upon this country after 
the lapse of a hundred years. If the shade of 
that venerable man could appear here, and listen 
to these debates upon the proposition to add a 
new State from beyond the Mississippi to the 
Union, he would hear from the Government 
side calls for more troops, and arguments to 
show the necessity of an increase of the standing 
army; he would hear that the people of the 
State proposed to be added to the Union are a 
factious people; that they claim the right to 
vote on the adoption of their Constitution ; to 
have the charter that defines their rights and 
their form of government submitted by the 
convention that made it to themselves, and to 
express their opinion of it ; that in this new 



State the people are unwilling to have slavery 
established as one of their institutions ; that, 
although the President declares the constitu- 
tion prepared for them by the Lecompton con- 
vention to be a good one, they contumaciously 
reply that it is not their constitution ; that 
they complain of fraud and corruption in the 
officials appointed and sustained by the central 
Government ; that they refuse to pay the taxes 
levied by the Legislature, alleging that they 
had no voice in its election, and were not rep- 
resented in it ; that they agitate and annoy the 
Government and disturb the quiet of the coun- 
try by their turbulent and disorderly conduct ; 
that they remonstrate against stuffed ballot- 
boxes, spurious votes, forged certificates, and 
false returns at their elections, and demand of 
the Government investigation and punishment 
of these offences ; that they insist upon the 
right to decide for themselves the character of 
their State institutions, and refuse to accept 
the constitution which the Govsrnment offers 
to them ; that they complain of the intrusion 
of regular troops belonging to the standing 
army of the Federal Government sent to 
maintain law and order in their Territory; 
that they are seditious ; that they are rebels ; 
that they have been permitted to occupy the 
attention of the Government and the country 
too long ; that they must have a local govern- 
ment instituted over them by Congress, and 
be subdued by the army. He would hear 
some uncertain and mystical suggestions that 
the people of the State, when reduced to order, 
might possibly, at some future time, be allow- 
ed to alter their obnoxious constitution in 
some legal manner. I think, after listening so 



far, Franklin would inquire, "is this the 
American Congress, and have you established 
!i consolidated Government? Or is this the 
British Parliament, and have the United States 
been reunited to the Crown ?" Upon being told 
that this is one of the Chambers of the Ameri- 
can Congress, that the United States are still 
an independent nation, and that the words of 
the Federal constitution remain imchangcd, 
he would say, " then these honorable gentle- 
men, who occupy the seats of legislators h.n'e, 
have not inherited the republicanism of my 
day and generation ; this is not the Democracy 
that thundered at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, 
and at Yorktown, and rang out their battle- 
cry <if liberty and independence througli all 
the colonies, until the royal charters were abol- 
ished, and the right of the people to institute 
their forms of government and to make their 
constitutions for themselves was acknowl- 
edged." 

Mr. President, the convention held at Le- 
compton framed a State constitution for Kan- 
sas, and refused to submit it to the people. 

The convention submitted a single provision 
of the constitution to the people — the question 
whether slaves might hereafter be imp'orted or 
brought into the State ; and required, as a 
preliminary to the right of any elector to vote 
for or aj,ainst this single partial provision on 
the subject of slavery, that he should first vote 
for the obnoxious constitution, which con- 
tained, separate and distinct from the provis- 
ion submitted, an article perpetuating slavery 
in the State of Kansas in the persons of those 
now held as slaves in the Territory, and in 
their posterity, forever. 

A very large majority of the people were 
opposed to the obnoxious constitution, and re- 
fused to vote for it. Without voting for the 
constitution, no elector could vote for or against 
the single provision submitted. 

It is notorious that the Lecompton conven- 
tion knew the constitution it framed was re- 
pugnant to the sentiments, the opinions, and 
the consciences of a large majority of the peo- 
ple ; that they condemned the instrument and 
the institution of slavery which it proposed to 
establish and perpetuate among them. 

It is known to every Senator and to every 
Representative in Congress that a very large 
majority of all the qualified voters in Kansas 
have expressed their opinion against the Le- 
compton constitution at an election held under 
the authority of an act of their Territorial 
Legislature on the 4th day of January last, 
when the constitution was submitted, and the 
people rejected it by their votes. 

This is the case of Kansas, as presented to 
the Senate by the majoritj^ of the Committtee 
on Territories in their report and bill, which 
assumed that the fi. st Territorial Legi.-lature 
in Kansas was fairly and legally elected by the 
people, and organized, and that the Lecompton 



convention was fairly elected by the people in 
pursuance of the law of their Territorial Le- 
gislature. 

In the case thus made by the majority of 
the committee, the fundamental question of 
the right of the people of a Territory to adopt 
for themselves the constitution which creates 
them a State, preparatory to admission into the 
Union, is presented. The sovereign right of 
the people is denied, and the sovereign right 
of a convention of delegates afitirmed. The 
question raised in the case of Kansas is not a 
question for Kansas alone. It is for every 
Territory hereafter to be organized, and for 
every State hereafter to be admitted into 
the Union, as well as for Kansas. It is a 
question of constitutional and political right of 
the first magnitude. Indeed, it is the question 
of the inherent sovereignty of the people, vital 
to the people inhabiting the territory now be- 
longing to the United States, and to all which 
may hereafter be acquired or come within our 
ever-expanding borders. 

It is no less vital to the people of every 
State now in the Union, because it i^ the ques- 
tion where sovereignty resides, whether in rep- 
resentatives and representative bodies, in the 
Federal Government, or in the people. Our 
existence as a republican Government rests 
upon the principle involved in this question. 

When the sovereignty of the people is sub- 
verted or successfully denied by any represent- 
ative body, or by any other power, the rights 
and the liberties of the people are in the hands 
and at the mercy of that power. The Gov- 
ernment of the United States, inaugurated 
upon the principles of the Revolution of 1776, 
recognised the sovereignty of the States, and 
the sovereign right of the people of the States 
to frame and adopt their forms of government, 
and to make and to adopt their constitutions. 
It is a constitutional right of the people of a 
State, essential to its equality as one of the 
States of the Union, and necessary to the re- 
publican character of its constitution — a right 
never before denied or questioned. If those 
who now, in the case of the people of Kansas, 
deny this right, had before the day of election 
in November, 1856, only wiiispered their de- 
sign to subvert this sovereign right of the peo- 
ple, the Administration which is now pressing 
upon Congress the proposition to subvert the 
rights of the people of Kansas, would never 
have come into power to make such a question. 
No State has ever been brought into the Union 
where it was denied, questioned, or doubted, 
that the people of the State to be admitted ap- 
proved their constitution. The enabling acts, 
the forms of law, and the modes of proceeding 
on the part of the people, preparatory to their 
admission as States into the Union, have wide- 
ly varied. I do not know that they have been 
exactly alike in the cases of any two States. 
But observance of the vital principle that all 



just government derives it authority from the 
consent of the governecl, has been the one es- 
sential thing required in all. Are the Presi- 
dent and Consz;ress prepaTod to go back to the 
reign of the Geoi'gcs in England, and assume 
the prerogatives of the Crown and the unlim- 
ited power of Pprlinment? And are they 
ready to renew in this country the controver- 
sies of those days between the prcrogaliv3 
and power of the central Government, and the 
constitutional power and political rights of the 
people — questions supposed to have been for- 
ever settled in America by the success of the 
Revolution, and the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States? Whatever the 
President may be willing to do, is Congress 
prepared to deny the absolute and sovereign 
right of the people of a new State to form and 
adopt their own constitution ? And is Con- 
gress prepared to assume the sovei'cign power 
to impose a constitution upon the people of a 
new State ? Congress has the power to admit 
new States into the Union, but it has not the 
constitutional power to make a constitution for 
a State, or to adopt one made by others, and 
impose it upon the people of a State. 

The President possesses no such constitu- 
tional power, and cannot be invested with such 
authority by an act of Congress. Tiie Presi- 
dent who recommends such a measure to Con- 
gress, and proposes to enforce such an act upon 
the unwilling people of a State, is false to the 
high trust reposed in hira by the people of all 
the States in the Union. It is a subversion of 
the rights of the States. It is consolidation. 
When the Federal Government shall exercise 
the power to impose a constitution upon the 
people of a State, who shall say what limita- 
tions to its power remain ; what shall stay its 
arbitrary will; and how and where shall its 
typannj"- be arrested? But, Mi-. President, 
monstrous and utterlv indefensible as the prop- 
osition to bring Kansas into the Union under 
the Lecompton constitution stands upon the 
case as made by the majority of the committee, 
dark colors are yet to be added to the true 
picture of violence to the constitutional prin- 
ciples of republican government, and of out- 
rage against the rights of the people of Kansas. 

The report of the majority of the committee 
does not state the facts of the case correctly. 
The assumption that the first Territorial Legisla- 
ture of Kansas was fwirly elected, and valid in 
law, is contradicted by record evidence. The 
assumption that the Lecompton convention 
was fairly elected by the people of Kansas, is 
contradicted by evidence that can be neither 
contradicted nor controverted. Upon these 
two assumptions, the majoiity of the committee 
maintain the sovereignty of a convention, and 
deny the sovereignty of the people. 

The history of Kansas, from the beginning 
to the end of it, is one of fraud and violence, 
of wrong and outrage. Altho'Jgh the majority 



here have refused to authorize any inquiry or 
investigation that would bring the facts offi- 
cially before the Senate, yet they arc notorious 
to the whole country, and they cannot be ex- 
cluded from our sight. The act of Congress 
that organized the Territory repealed the eighth 
section of the act for the admission of Missouri 
into the LTnion, commonly called the Missouri 
compromise law — a law which excluded slavery 
from the Territoiy of Kansas. This was a 
breach of that faith and honor among men, 
which statutes can neither create nor destroy; 
a breach of that faith and honor between com- 
munities, which is their only strong bond of 
peacj and friendship. Successive statutes are 
monuments ihat mark the existence and decay 
of faith and honor in the men who make them, 
and in the nations which accept them. 

Under a charter for a Territorial Government, 
instituted by such a statute, the President ap- 
pointed a Governor, Secretary, judges, mar- 
shals, and other officers, and the day was ap- 
pointed for an election of members of a Legis- 
lature by the people, which would complete the 
organization of their Territorial Government. 
As the time for the election of members of the 
Legislature approached, four thousand nine 
hundred armed men, not residing in Kansas, 
oi'ganized for that purpose by secret lodges in 
the State of Missouri, passed over from that 
State into the Territoiy of Kansas, and, on the 
day fixed for the election of the first Territorial 
Legislature, seized, by force, the control at 
most of the precincts in the Territory, dis- 
placed by violence the judges of the election, 
took possession of the ballot-boxes, and ex- 
cluding the citizens residing in Kansas from 
the polls, proceeded to stuff' the ballot-boxes, 
and in that way to designate and appoint per- 
sons to be legislators for Kansas. Incontro- 
vertible evidence of these facts stands of record 
in the proceedings of the House of Represent- 
atives of the last Congress. 

The invasion from Missouri was successful 
and complete, and the invaders, having accom- 
plished their purpose, returned in organized 
bands to Missouri. The persons thus created 
legislators for Kansas, assembled, organized, 
and, assuming to be the Legislature, proceeded 
to pass laws for the government of the Ter- 
ritory, and to levy taxes upon the people. 
Their enactments were arbitrary and oppres- 
sive, designed to drive the people from tho 
settlements they had made, and compel them 
to abandon the Territory. The people of 
Kansas denied the authority of this Legisla- 
ture. In an evil hour, the President of the 
United States recognised this usurpation as tho 
Government of Kansas, and large bodies of 
Federal troops have been stationed in the Ter- 
ritory to overawe the people by their presence 
and to enforce the aulliority thus nefariously 
imposed upon them. 
Tiie call for the Lecompton convention was 



4 



made by this usurpation, and upon its sub- 
mission to the people less than t\ven(3'--thrce 
hundred persons responded. The lar^c major- 
ity of the people denied its authority and re- 
fused to vote on the call for the convention, or 
at the subsequent election for delegates. Suf- 
ficient reasons existed for their refusal to vote ; 
they would not acknowledge the authoiity of 
the usurpation. For the election of delegates, 
an act for the registry of voters had been 
passed, and the people in many of the counties 
were disfranchised by the omission on the part 
of the registry officers to register the voters. 
In these counties, no places were appointed for 
holding the elections, and none could be held, 
and no delegates could be elected. In the 
counties where registries were made, they 
were partial, omitting large numbers of the 
qualified voters. The people of the Territory 
reasonably apprehended that, without regard 
to the number of votes which might be de- 
posited in the ballot-boxes by the electors, the 
inspectors and returning officers of the election 
would, by false certificates, return, as elected, 
men for their own purposes, and not the men 
who would receive the votes of the electors. 

The origin and proceedings of the Territorial 
authorities fully justified this apprehension. 
At the election under their authority in Oc- 
tober last, to continue the Missouri usurpation, 
in the election of a new Legislature, although 
the original invaders did not reappear, sixteen 
hundred spurious and fictitious votes were re- 
turned by the inspectors of election upon false 
certificates, from a single poll, the Oxford pre- 
cinct, in Johnson county. One of the officers 
of the election at the Oxford precinct — the 
very man, it is said, who manufactured the 
false certificate returning the sixteen hundred 
fraudulent votes — was one of the secretaries 
of the Lecompton convention. One thousand 
fraudulent votes at the same election were re- 
turned from McGee county, and more or less 
from various precincts, sufficient to decide the 
elections without regard to Ihc votes of the 
electors. The returns of the election were in 
accordance with the wishes of the usurpation, 
and not in accordance with the votes of the 
electors. President Buchanan, with the con- 
currence of his Cabinet, in their official in- 
structions to Governor Walker, gave express 
and positive assurances to the people of Kansas, 
that the constitution, preparatory to their be- 
coming a State, should be submitted to a fair 
vote of the people, to be adopted or rejected 
by them. 

Governor Walker, in his official communica- 
tions to the people, repeated and affirmed these 
assurances. The candidates proposed for dele- 
gates to the Lecomption convention — after- 
wards returned as delegates — before the elec- 
tion voluntarily pledged themselves to the 
public, verbally and in writing, that the con- 
stitution the convention might fi-amo for Kan- 



sas should be submitted to a vote of the people. 
The Governor of the Territory, invested with 
authority by the President of the United States, 
proclaimed to the people of Kansas, that, at an 
election, to be held with security against fraud 
or violence at the polls, and against false cer- 
tificates by the returning officers, a fair oppor- 
tunity should be afforded to all the qualified 
voters to vote; and that a majority of the votes 
of the people should determine the adoption or 
rejection of the constitution; that his official 
reports to the President and Congress, and his 
action for or against the constitution, should be 
governed by the vote of the majoritj'- at such 
an election. Governor Walker adhered to his 
declarations; he rejected the false certificates 
returning the spurious and fictitious votes in 
Johnson and McGee counties for members of 
the Legislature, and persisted in requiring that 
the constitution of the Lecompton convention 
should be submitted to a vote of the people. 
For this he fell under the displeasure of the 
President, and repaired to Washington to make 
explanations anel represent the condition of 
affairs in the Territory. He failed to satisfy 
the President and his Cabinet, or to induce 
them to fulfil the assurances which had been 
given to the people of Kansas, that thej^ should 
have an opportunity to vote on the adoption of 
their State constitution. Governor Walker is 
reported to have said that he went with the 
Administration to the gates of the penitentiary, 
in this business, and he would go no further. 
He had left the Territory ; he declined to re- 
turn to it, and resigned his commission. 

Secretary Stanton, who went to the Terri- 
tory by the appointment and as a friend of Pres- 
ident Buchanan, became acting Governor by 
the resignation of Governor Walker. Upon 
assuming the executive power, Mr. Stanton re- 
fused to sustain the frauds by which the usurp- 
ation designed to perpetuate its power, and 
persisted, as Governor Walker had done, in 
requiring that the constitution of the Lecomp- 
ton convention should be submitted, for adop- 
tion or rejection, to a vote of the people ; where- 
upon, he was summai ily removed by the Pres- 
ident, and General Denver, a bureau officer of 
the Administration in AVashington, was ap- 
pointed, first Secretary, and then Governor. 
It is this last Governor of Kansas, General 
Denver, who has certified the votes of the 
people of Kansas at the election authorized by 
the law of their new Territorial Legislature, 
and held on the 4th day of January last, in 
which the vote of the people is nearl}'' unani- 
mous, and the majority more than ten thou- 
sand against the Lecompton constitution. The 
Lecompton constitution is not the constitution 
of the people of Kansas. It is an instrument 
of the Lecompton convention anel the Federal 
Administration, and is stained with false pre- 
tences and fraud from the beginning to the 
end. To impose this instrument upon the 



6 



people of Kansas as their constitution, by an 
act of Congress, would outrage justice and 
truth. It would be a violation of the Federal 
Constitution, by the exercise of power neither 
granted to the Federal (joveinment nor re- 
motely hinted at in the. Constitution. It would 
be an act of tyranny. It is a mockeiy of 
State sovcreignt}^ in the report of the majority 
of the Committee on Territories, to call the 
proposition they make to the Senate an act for 
the admission of the State of Kansas. 

The question is not that of the aUmissio7i of 
Kansas ; an act of admission implies at the least 
the concurrence of the party to be admitted. 
The proposition before the Senate, whatever 
may be the name and style given by the ma- 
jority of the Committe on Territories to their 
bill, is no question of the admission of Kan- 
sas. It is the monstrous proposition to im- 
pose upon the people of the Territory of Kan- 
sas a constitution and form of government 
known to be obnoxious to a very large majori- 
ty of that people, accompanied by every indi- 
cation on the part of the Federal Administra- 
tion of a disposition to compel the submission 
of the people of the State by the power of the 
Federal (jlovernment. To call such attempted 
coercion an admission of the State of Kansas, is to 
deride the sovereignty of the people of the State. 
I repeat, this is no question of the admission 
of a State. It is one of a series of acts in the 
scheme conceived by the nullifiers who have 
obtained thorough control of the organization 
of the Democratic party, to change the con- 
stitution of the United States bj"- the judicial 
construction and decisions of the Federal 
courts, and to subvert our free form of govern- 
ment. Whether a settled plan and a combi- 
nation exist to i)rovoke disturbances with a 
view to a dissolution of the Union, time will 
full}^ disclose. There should be no fear of the 
full development of any such scheme, no mat- 
ter by whom the idea may be entertained, and 
no matter who may be concerned in it. The 
American citizen who would fear it has little 
of the spirit which animated the men who 
fought ttie battles of the Revolution, and es- 
tablished the independence, the liberties, and 
the union of our common country. 

The wild schemes of men long accustomed 
to wield the power of a disciplined party or- 
ganization are not always guided by reason. 
To inquire into the desperate conceits of mad 
ambition, and to direct the public attention to 
them, is to dissipate thtm. The Hartford con- 
vention, held under the auspices of the Federal 
party, was suspected of entertaining the idea 
of dissolving the Union in certain contingen- 
cies. This suspicion, whether well or ill found- 
ed, excited the jealousy of all the friends of 
this country. It exasperated the prejudices 
and hostility of the Republicans of that day, 
and completed the full weight of accusation 
against the Federal party, already loaded with 



the alien law, the sedition act, the stamp act? 
the midnight judges, and the standing army. 
The power of that once pn.ud and patriotic 
party, which, at an early da)'', had borne the 
heat and burden of the political contest that 
adopted the Constitution and established the 
Union of the States, gave way, and was de- 
stroyed forever. The word " Federal," as the 
name of a party, became so odious in the pop- 
ular car, that no party, for a great many 
years, has claimed or would accept it. The 
Nashville convention, held under the auspices 
of the Democratic party, at a more recent day, 
flaunted its proclamations and purposes of a 
dissolution of the Union ; but the Nashville 
convention was believed to be a humbug. I 
remember to have heard a distinguished citi- 
zen of Tennessee, at the time, speak of that 
body. He said that but very few of the citi- 
zens of Tennessee had anything to do with it ; 
its members were mostly from a distance, and 
strangers in that State; "and," said he, "if 
the convention should do any act by which 
the people of Tennessee should come to believe 
it menaced the safety of the Union, it would 
become so weak that its members could be 
driven out of the city of Nashville by the 
women of that town, with no other weapons 
than their broomsticks." This convention, al- 
though held only eight years ago, has less 
lodgment in the memoiy of the country than 
the Hartford convention, which was held more 
than forty years ago. All remember the abor- 
tive treason of Burr ; and the movements for 
nullification in South Carolina, in 1832, dissi- 
pated by the pen of General Jackson, whose 
proclamation at the time invoked a demonstra- 
tion of devotion to the Union fiom the people 
of every one of the United States. 

Recollections of the conventions at Hartford 
and at Nashville remind us that the idea of 
dissolving the Union has been imputed to some 
and entertained by others in this country. I 
have never believed that the people of any 
State of the Union favored it; although it has 
become too common to talk of' it in the Halls 
of Congress, and to pass resolutions on that 
subject in party conventions and State Legis- 
latures. 

For the purpose of extending slavery into 
Kansas, a great wrong has been committed 
against the principles of republican govern- 
ment, and against the rights of the people of 
that Territory. Let the Federal Government 
retrace its steps; restore the Administration 
to the principles and practices of Washington 
and Jefferson; abandon the Lecompton con- 
stitution ; withdraw the troops from Kansas ; 
permit the people to make a constitution for 
themselves ; admit the State into the Union as 
every other State has been admitted, in the 
constitutional maimer in which her people dc- 
su-e to come, and the wrong which has been 
done, great as it is, may be forgiven. The 



6 



country would be at peace; and, in rejoicing 
over the return of the Government to I'eason, 
might forget the past. 

Persist in accomplishing the object for which 
BO much has been ventured by the present Ad- 
ministration and the one which last preceded 
it — attempt to force the Lecompton constitu- 
tion upon the people of Kansas by the author- 
ity of an act of Congress and the power of 
the Federal army — and you will have insub- 
ordination, resistance, bloodshed, civil war. 
The people of Kansas will never consent to 
have slavery established among them ; they 
will never accept the Lecompton constitution ; 
they have alieady rejected it. In such an issue 
of blood between the Federal army and the 
people of Kansas, the Government will be 
wrong, and the people of Kansas will be right. 
Will the people of the States remain spectators 
of the conflict? They will not. The pe')plc of 
Kansas are the countrymen and the kindred of 
the people of the States. Your law opening 
the Territory for settlement invited them to go 
there. Let the Federal army spill American 
blood in Kansas, and you kindle a fire which 
the Fedeial Government and its army cannot 
extinguish. 

Who, Mr. President, is responsible for the 
long series of wrongs out of which these 
troubles come? And who can be held account- 
able to the country for the pernicious acts oc- 
curring during so large a space of time, per- 
formed in so many places, and participated in 
by so many and various persons, for two suc- 
cessive administrations of the Government? 

Plan, system, design, moving and directing 
the action of all the varied agencies to a com- 
mon end and object, are now plainly visible, 
fro n the act repealing the Missoui'i compro- 
mise to the bill before us, which proposes to 
impose the slave constitution of the Lecomp- 
ton convention upon the people of Kansas. 

The act of Congress that repcale 1 the Mis- 
souri compromise ; the course of President 
Pierce, stimulated to be a candidate for renomi- 
nation, and persuaded to rely upon the authors 
of this scheme for his success; the institution 
of the blue lodgos in the State of Missouri ; 
the resignation of office by the President of 
this Senate, who went straight from the Capitol 
in Washington to organize in those lodges, on 
the borders of Missouri, the armed invasion of 
Kansas ; the march from that State of fortj'^- 
nine hundred armed men, not residents of 
Kansas, organized in companies and detach- 
ments, fo the places for holding the electio is 
in that Territory ; their seizure of the polls on 
the day of the election, and their appointment 
of legislators for Kansas by force and usurpa- 
tion ; the recognition of that usurpation as the 
Government of Kansas by the administration 
of General Pierce; the odious and oppressive 
laws they enacted; the indictments for treason 
against the usurpation in the Federal courts of 



the Territory, which were never tried; the 
total prostration of the rights of franchise in 
elections ; the repeated removal of Governors 
who refused or failed to sustain the proceed- 
ings of the usurpers ; the decision of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States in the case 
of Dred Scott ; the Lecompton convention and 
its constitution, with the faithless assurances 
to the people of Kansas that the constitution 
for their State should be submitted to their 
vote for adoption or rejection ; the quartering 
large bodies of Federal troops in Kansas; the 
election of State officers ordered by the Le- 
compton convention, appointing the president 
of the convention (Mr. Calhoun) sole judge of 
the elections ; the false and fraudulent returns 
of votes at that election, now and for nearly 
three months in the possession of Mr. Cal- 
houn, and his refusal to decide who were elected 
until Congress shall have acted on the consti- 
tution ; and the bill now here to impose the 
Lecompton constitution upon the people of 
Kansas — are all parts of one continued plan and 
design. Those who have performed the various 
parts are responsible and accountable in their 
several degrees for what they have d me ; but 
they have been mere agencies of ths power 
that controlled and directed their action. That 
power is the national organization of the Dem- 
ocratic party, and it is responsible for the 
long series of outrage, and for the great wrong 
which the bill before us proposes to consum- 
mate. The organization of the Democi'atic 
party has fallen irretrievably under the control 
of nuUitiers and slave propagandists, many of 
whom, in all the States, but especially in the 
slave States, were, until very recently, the 
open enemies of the Democratic party, viru- 
lent denouncers of General Jickson and the 
measures of his administration; men who have 
not now, and never did have, a drop of Demo- 
cratic blood in their veins. The organization 
of the Democratic partj^, controlled by the 
counsels of such advisers, has abandoned its 
principles and its trust. Public meetings and 
conventions of veteran Democrats remonstrate 
in vain. Why is there any apprehension that 
the Lecompton constitution will be adopted by 
Congress, and the attempt be made to force it 
upon the people of Kansas? Many of the 
Democratic members of the Senate and House 
of Representatives abhor the Lecompton con- 
stitution and detest its frauds. 

Is there a man in or out of Congress who 
doubts for a moment that the Lecompton con- 
stitution would be rejected by Congress, if the 
Democratic party did not demand its adoption? 
The severest discipline of party, the most in- 
decent dispensation of executive patronage, 
are made use of to influence the action and 
control the independence of Cougress. 

In this dark hour, when the Republic is in 
danger, 1 hail the coming day of emancipation 
from servile obedience to party, heralded in 



this Chamber by the independence of the dis- 
tinguished and fearless Senators on the Demo- 
cratic side of the Senate, from Illinois, from 
Michigan, and from California, upon whose 
limbs the bands of the Democratic party that 
would bind them to Lecompton are like the 
gi-een withes of Delilah upon the limbs of the 
unshorn Samson. I hail, too, the hosts of 
thousands and tens of thousands of honest 
Democrats, who, all over the country, at this 
moment are renouncing the long-cherished 
party name of Democrat, because it has be- 
come tainted with treason to the rights of the 
people, and are rallying under anti-Lecompton 
banners, to resist the Administration and the 
faithless organization of the Democratic party. 
Let us all be anti-Lecompton men ; let us all 
bo Republicans ; let us fraternize and over- 
come the enemies of public liberty. 



The Whig party is gone forever, because, in 
the hour of its responsibility, it failed in ihe 
courage and firmness required for the high 
trust committed to its charge. 

Noble as have been the achievements of the 
Democratic party while it adhered to its prin- 
ciples, when it has become faithless to the 
rights and liberties of the people, its organiza- 
tion must be dissolved. 

The honest Democracy of the country — its 
real Democracy — buried deep the name of the 
Federal party. They will consign the tainted 
party name of Democrat to the same grave ; 
and they will make the grave deep and 
large enough to hold all the treason that dare 
show itself within the boundaries of the 
Union. 



TiBRflRY OF CONbKti>o. 

■11 

016 088 993 7, 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

tUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1858. 



